Blog – ImpacTech https://www.impactechs.com An AI-driven Company | Intelligent Business Relationships Wed, 13 May 2020 12:55:42 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.1.9 https://www.impactechs.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/impactech-fav-icon.ico Blog – ImpacTech https://www.impactechs.com 32 32 Siri and Alexa’s ‘all business’ sibling will take ASR to another level https://www.impactechs.com/blog/siri-and-alexas-all-business-sibling-will-take-asr-to-another-level/ https://www.impactechs.com/blog/siri-and-alexas-all-business-sibling-will-take-asr-to-another-level/#respond Thu, 30 Apr 2020 09:17:00 +0000 https://www.impactechs.com/?post_type=blog&p=14213 Adding Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) to your business now offers tangible ROI for a small initial investment.

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Adding Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) to your business now offers tangible ROI for a small initial investment

Look beyond the new ways Siri and Alexa can help us and you’ll see a clock counting down the impending arrival of their ‘all business’ sibling. It will not be long until some marketing exec christens the next iteration of Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology, but until then there’s time to look at how ASR has developed for business use.

ASR, or speech to text technology, has been climbing the accuracy mountain for over 50 years and has finally reached a peak, thanks to deep learning, where it can support important business functions.

During 2014 transcription accuracy jumped to almost 90%. Over a period of months in that year Google, Microsoft, AWS and IBM traded blows about the new standards in accuracy they were setting. But this was a phoney war as the results were achieved in ‘laboratory’ conditions and didn’t reflect real-life situations. Testing the same system in true to life conditions of a business to customer call can bring the Word Error Rate (WER) down to somewhere between 20%-25%.

However, the pursuit of ‘business quality’ accuracy continued.

ASR NEEDS QUALITY DATA

A crucial part of every business-to-customer phone call is the environmental noise that is present in both channels of any conversation. This can vary from low intensity office noises, to loud music playing or even worse, vivid conversations taking place near the customer’s phone. This variability in conditions poses a huge difficulty in ASR which, as every technology under the artificial intelligence (AI) umbrella, is dependent on data to improve its performance, and assumes all possible conditions are – to some degree – present in the training data.

This is why the key driver for ASR accuracy is not entirely based on the volume of data. If it were, Google or AWS would offer the best performing ASR tools. They do not because a significant success driver is data quality in combination with the training data emanating from a relevant environmental and semantic space (i.e matched training conditions).

This window of opportunity has seen development of ASR for a specific vertical that outperforms the best results of generic engines offered by Google and AWS.

ImpacTech’s personalized solution

ASR – Automatic speech recognition is the machine based translation of spoken language to written text. In a conversational setting, ASR must be able to recognize an unlimited set of words (i.e open vocabulary) spoken in a natural way (not dictated). In addition, a complete ASR solution must be able to distinguish the turn of the speakers in the conversation.
ASR-block-diagram
FIgure 1: A general representation of Impactech’s ASR system.

ImpacTech’s deep ASR system offers real time and open vocabulary recognition of conversational speech optimized for each target domain, ensuring that even small sets of matched training data are utilized to their maximum potential. Furthermore, once the system is put in production, the incoming stream of data is utilized in a Continual Learning fashion in order to ensure a regular adaptation and further customization of the whole system.

As shown in the figure above, the input phone call is first passed through a Voice Activity Detection (VAD) module that detects which participant in the conversation is talking. Once the VAD signals the start of speech in either of the two channels, our ASR system starts transcribing. VAD is trained to ignore any ‘noise’ (secondary conversations, music and other office noises happening in the background) and focuses on the key participants.

In the next step, the Acoustic Modelling (AM) and Language Modelling (LM) modules work together to provide fully time-stamped output relative to the beginning of the conversation at two levels: per word and per dialogue turn within each transcribed conversation. This output can be used in a next layer as input to various AI modules, that exploit natural language understanding (NLU) methods to draw conclusions on topics of interest.

An acoustic model is a statistical model that represents the speech generation process and the relationships that exists between the acoustic signal and the various linguistic units that formulate speech, such as syllables or phonemes. The AMs are trained from audio recordings and their text transcriptions.
A language model is a probabilistic model that is used to predict the next word in a sentence. It inherently takes into account the grammatical and syntactic attributes of a language and provides a probability to each possible spoken utterance recognized by the AM. The LMs are trained from text transcriptions.

On top of state-of-the-art deep architectures in the VAD and ASR systems, ImpacTech offers customized statistical models, tailored to the needs of each customer. A smart data selection module evaluates the importance and richness of each transcribed conversation, and the most interesting ones are kept and utilized in an adaptive fashion to optimize all statistical models. The more the system is used the better it learns the environment and the domain, leading to a continuous improvement of results.

For an initial customization with as little as 10 hours of target speech this system can be adapted to any specific vertical whether through using pre-recorded audio or live phone conversations and optimized by speed or accuracy to the specific transcription needs of a business.

ASR BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

Blog - Sentiment Analysis img
Figure 2: Compliance analysis on top of ASR output

And when transcription is no longer a time-consuming, labour intensive task so many business opportunities open.

The Microsoft State of global customer service survey reported that 40% of people still prefer using phone or voice channels when dealing with contact centers. And when you consider that 80% of all business communications take place over the phone the potential is huge.

When converted to text, speech is searchable and easier to check for keyword usage. For example, in finance, it significantly increases compliance efficiency by making it easier to identify regulatory infringements (see figure 2 above).

This ASR system also improves the customer experience (CX) when they contact a business. The first point of contact is often an interactive voice response (IVR) system, when used with ASR technology it enables a caller to perform self-service tasks, such as checking account balances or authenticating their identity before speaking with an agent and identifying the reason for the call so that they can be connected to the appropriate agent.

However, this is a one-dimensional view of the potential of automatic transcription as speech contains so much more information than just text.

Our ASR system also makes it available and purposed for natural language processing (NLP) and NLU.

COMBINE ASR WITH SENTIMENT ANALYSIS

SENTIMENT ANALYSIS

Sentiment analysis is the interpretation and classification of emotions (positive, negative and neutral) within text data using text analysis techniques. Sentiment analysis allows businesses to identify customer sentiment toward products, brands or services in online conversations and feedback.

When combined with sentiment analysis the transcription becomes more valuable as conversational intent is determined. It enables a business to understand how a customer feels which enables deeper engagement with customers and is valuable to marketing, sales and customer support teams.

The potential efficiency gains in sales is highly significant. Lead management is optimized by identifying the most engaged leads and how close a deal is to being closed. It is also easier to identify engagement opportunities.

In marketing the combination of speech to text and sentiment analysis can be used for competitive insight and market research, and to accurately measure campaign success.

ASR and sentiment analysis extracts feedback about customer support to accurately measure the efficiency of the customer support process.

When this technology is fully embedded in a business it can also drive product adoption by interpreting discussions around products and brands. These insights can play a role in product development and brand protection through the analysis of these conversations.

A GAME-CHANGER FOR CALL CENTRES

More than any other modern technology ASR is a game-changer for call centres. Their role has expanded beyond simply increasing revenue. Nowadays, the goal is to create and sustain the highest level of satisfaction throughout the customer journey.

With ASR, quality control and agent effectiveness can be measured efficiently and in real time. Bench-marking can be set quantitatively by identifying the level every agent needs to achieve in attentiveness and responsiveness. It also speeds up response time to problems because they are easier to identify.

A business can build a knowledge base from real-life interactions, and create best practices based on analysis of the data. Problems like dispute resolution can be handled more efficiently by using the knowledge base to build response methods based on the best previous outcomes.

But perhaps most importantly this ASR system has such a low barrier to entry it is accessible to businesses of all sizes and offers a far simpler first step towards digital transformation with less organisational disruption than most other rou.tes involving AI technology

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How to successfully implement a CRM https://www.impactechs.com/blog/how-to-successfully-implement-a-crm/ https://www.impactechs.com/blog/how-to-successfully-implement-a-crm/#respond Tue, 03 Mar 2020 10:44:33 +0000 https://www.impactechs.com/?post_type=blog&p=14003 Choosing the right CRM solution is crucial, but key steps are needed to make it work for your business.

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A version of this article also appeared in Forbes on Feb. 03, 2020.

Choosing the right CRM solution is crucial, but key steps are needed to make it work for your business

Whether you’re replacing a customer relationship management (CRM) platform or you’re a first-time user, your implementation strategy is critical.

Nowadays, a CRM is the hub for all customer-facing activities, and solutions exist for every business regardless of size or industry. With the right CRM, your business can deliver timely, automated, targeted communications to customers to personalize the customer journey.

Working with a tool that elevates customer experience (CX) advances the sales process, customer service and retention. Communication between departments also improves with timely access to information.

But every department needs to be heard when a new CRM is planned. Getting sales involved is as important as involving marketing, customer service and every other customer-facing function. If your CRM doesn’t work for every department, it’s a problem for the whole company.

And when a new CRM is accused of “wasting time,” it is more often an implementation failure.

CHOOSE THE RIGHT CRM

Today’s CRMs are highly configurable, but unless you have a complete understanding of your business needs, you will not make the right choice. Consider the CRMs your competitors currently use, and evaluate their pros and cons.

According to Gartner’s 2019 “Strategic Roadmap for CRM Technologies” (paywall), 88% of CRMs were on-premise in 2008, but by 2018, 87% of CRMs used by businesses were cloud-based.

Impact CRM is cost-effective and efficient way to bring AI into your business. AI can automate data entry and lead management, and it also offers a greater understanding of customers and how they will act in relation to a scenario.

Gartner’s report recommends that businesses “prioritize prospective data intelligence solutions that offer AI capabilities to augment your sellers’ knowledge about their top accounts and clients.” It predicts that by 2022, 20% of sales training and coaching solutions will provide in-context personalization based on machine learning.

Also, using AI-based data intelligence solutions will reduce time B2B sales organizations spend prospecting by up to 50%.

DEFINE NEEDS AND MAP PROCESSES

Leveraging new technology has always helped businesses stay competitive. But unless you first define your business goals and needs, it’s difficult to understand how any new tech meets those needs and achieves those goals.

Achieving these goals requires mapping processes. This identifies which processes can be automated through the CRM to increase efficiency and frees up time for more creatively demanding tasks.

INTEGRATION

Protect your investment in existing software solutions and apps by ensuring they are connected during implementation.

Having one new piece of tech to learn is disruptive enough. Being told that the new CRM doesn’t work with software they’ve just gotten to grips with is a headache your employees will quickly pass on to the implementation project manager.

Integration with existing apps will increase customers’ understanding. By collecting and analysing the data from every touch point and combining it with CRM data, your business will better understand the customer journey.

This will in turn elevate the CX your business can deliver. Why is this important? Because CX drives purchasing. And nowadays, it is more important than the price or product features.

FEEDBACK

Make giving feedback an obligation from every tester. The earlier users are involved, the better the development will be. Your testing team needs to represent every function within the business, so have that in mind when choosing its members.

This process accelerates familiarity with the CRM and will lead to the creation of custom fields that reflect tester input. It also creates a greater sense of ownership of the new system.

DATA MIGRATION AND OTHER ESSENTIALS

Data migration and creation of data backup is a top priority. Also, set a timeline for clear deliverables and training schedules. The project manager should be someone who was integral to the CRM selection process and who can secure buy-in from management.

Create a budget that covers training costs and the cost for the absence of department members who are focused on CRM implementation.

Identify if your business has the internal resources and technical acumen for implementation. If there’s a skills shortage, look to the CRM vendor for support.

When putting your implementation team together, there are some key positions that need special consideration. A project manager to lead the team is one of the most critical choices. That person will be the focus point for the duration of the implementation and beyond.

The team also needs an application developer and QA test engineer. Data migration and cleansing is carried out by the developer, while the QA test engineer heads up testing.

Beyond these key members, also include representatives from every department that will use the CRM: sales, marketing and customer service. Involving different departments provides expertise for what solutions are needed to solve specific issues in their respective functions.

The key question to ask at the end of your plan is whether the CRM achieves the goals that were set when it was selected.

TRAINING AND SUPPORT

There is no single training programme every user takes to bring them up to speed with a new CRM, it needs to be customised to each business function.

The marketing department needs to focus on things like contact segmentation, list building, event management and reporting, while data teams should be trained on research and data-quality best practices.

The sales team will need to come to grips with new processes that improve their close rates and productivity, whereas assistants will need to adopt the discipline for inputting and updating information and activities and adding contacts to lists.

This should extend to the company’s C-suite. With all key decision-makers using the same solution, the key players in your business will access unified BI. With the global overview a CRM provides, KPIs can be set that ensure everyone will sing from the same song sheet.

Your CRM should put the customer at the centre of your business. The ability to collect and process all customer data through a single platform that connects the entire organisation is critical to high-level CX.

If by the end of the implementation process you have been able to marry this new technology with redefined internal processes and empowered your employees to perform their jobs better, your new CRM will reach the ultimate goal of enabling your business to achieve more.

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This is how we do DevOps https://www.impactechs.com/blog/this-is-how-we-do-devops/ https://www.impactechs.com/blog/this-is-how-we-do-devops/#respond Wed, 26 Feb 2020 10:41:14 +0000 https://www.impactechs.com/?post_type=blog&p=14000 At ImpacTech we optimise for flow, avoid drift and break down silos by following these DevOps best practices.

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At ImpacTech we optimise for flow, avoid drift and break down silos by following these DevOps best practices

IT companies strive to get their product to market faster and offer customers value and quality service through continuous evolution. How well they do this is a reflects their DevOps.

The first objective is a function of the development team while the latter is the responsibility of operations. Doing both well is essential to success. And despite the shared responsibility of software deployment and application support, the two departments don’t often interact. In most cases, they operate in siloed functions that do not encourage teamwork.

As a result, these departments frequently find themselves at cross purposes, and failure to address this issue over time results in competitive disadvantage in the market.

SILOS RESULT IN DISCONNECTED TEAMS

Development teams seek to deploy the changes/features requested by the customers and product owners and address bugs reported asap. They work to deploy these changes without affecting the product roadmap, team velocity or the tasks they’ve committed to completing.

By contrast, the primary goal of an operations team is to provide a reliable, stable and secure environment for customers. Operations oppose changes to software that put their production services into yellow state or results in any service degradation. The mindset is to avoid an “outage” at all costs.When left unchecked the discord between these teams increases the time needed create new features and address bugs. It also reduces software quality and accelerates a downward spiral of deployments going wrong.

Over time the situation worsens. As management/product owners/customers push for more features and delivery of bugs the teams respond with easy fixes and semi-prepared solutions which increase the technical debt (see definition) of the IT company.

As it moves deeper down the spiral under the weight of the accumulated debt, development that once took hours ends up taking days and deployments that used to take days spreads out over weeks.

Technical Debt

Technical Debt describes the impact of decisions made that lead to problems that become more difficult/complex to solve and limit the options available in the future. Like financial debt, technical debt carries significant “interest” over time.

Case study: LINKEDIN

LinkedIn faced some major issues in 2011 following their successful IPO which was magnified by the huge growth of the organization which resulted in failing deployments, short outages and every deployment posing a risk to the reliability of the system.
The technical debt accumulated over the years had finally caught up with LinkedIn and the primary monolithic service could not keep up with the vision of even faster growth.
In response management took the brave decision to put all new development on pause for two months to re-architect and re-factor their code base.

(reference: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/when-your-tech-debt-comes-due-kevin-scott)

THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL

The root of the problem is the desire of the Operations team to ensure applications/infrastructure run smoothly and products deliver value to the customers.

As technical debt accumulates, day-to-day operations become more complex and fragile. Workarounds are applied more frequently, and the Development team promises a holy fix will be applied on the next release – when more time is available.

But that time is never available.

Development complexity increases, the product’s fragility to changes increases no matter how many new hands are on deck.

Deadlines are missed and customers raise more tickets with Sales and Customer Support teams which increase the need to compensate for the last change made that broke a functionality or caused delay.

To placate the customers a huge new feature is promised.

The product owner pressurises the development team to deliver the new feature on time, fix the bugs and achieve the new project’s goals.

However, the technical challenges cannot be met without an easy fix. Another workaround is applied to Production with the inevitable consequences. Even greater technical debt.

Over time processes become more complex, team members are at full capacity, effective communication drops to the point that the company becomes so tightly coupled that even the smallest change can cause big failures.

Engineers avoid touching anything that it is still working, operations avoid deploying unless critical, and management brings in even more gatekeepers (overpopulating the approval chain).

With every cycle the IT company plunges down the spiral under the weight increasing technical debt.

The software delivery cycle becomes slower, customer feedback slows, and the company is unable respond to the demands of the market. Competitive advantage is lost, and the best engineers look for opportunities to get out as the most important customers cancel their contracts.

But it doesn’t have to be like this.

A BETTER WAY FOR DEVOPS TO CO-EXIST

For DevOps to work harmoniously and achieve the company’s common goals requires organizational excellence. The components of this model are:

  • Small development teams that work independently and validate their work in production-like environments. Their code is deployed quickly and safely.
  • Deployments for Operations team are easy and predictable and happen during normal business hours.
  • Feedback is provided for each step of the software lifecycle. Automated testing assures the Development team that the bugs are found as soon as possible and the Operations team that the technical debt is addressed as soon as it is discovered.
  • Environments exist that provide telemetry data (system metrics, log monitoring and tracing capabilities) to identify and fix any issue as soon as it is presented.
  • Software/infrastructure architecture that helps speed up the lifecycle and decouples each engineer’s work from the other. This make scaling possible and practical.
  • The lifecycle is fast enough that we value the fail fast approach. We can try to take risks, implement a feature that will be tested on some customers to identify any issues before offering as a general release.
  • Every engineer owns his or her work and seeks to achieve the highest quality by ensuring that every nut and bolt is tested automatically.
  • And when something goes wrong, we safely rollback, fix the issue and identify at Retrospective what actions need to be taken to ensure that this issue does not happen again.

In this organisational model quality is paramount and provides the space to continuously learn from any failures. Engineers can take personal responsibility, unencumbered by the goal to dominate the marketplace by providing higher value to our customers.

DOES THIS APPROACH PROVIDE VALUE FOR A BUSINESS?

According to the annual State of DevOps report issued by Puppet Labs, high performing organisations following these DevOps principles outperform their peers in the following areas:

  • Throughput metrics
  • Thirty times more frequent code deployments.
  • Two hundred times faster time from code commit to production.
  • Reliability metrics and production deployments with 60% higher success rate
  • 168 times faster mean time to service restore during incidents
  • Twice as likely to exceed organization goals on productivity, market share and profitability
  • 50% higher market capitalisation growth over three years

And as a bonus, engineers get to work with cool tools.

HOW TO ACHIEVE THIS DEVOPS APPROACH

These DevOps principles are a combination of proven best practises and years of learning in important movements in both IT and manufacturing.

The agile manifesto suggests following a development discipline of continuous building, testing and integration. But why not extend this to approach to add continuous delivery?

To achieve this an organization needs to undergo a transformation based on three key principles:

  • Principle of Flow: Accelerate the delivery of the work from business requirements to Development to Operations and finally to customers
  • Principles of Feedback: Continuous feedback throughout the lifecycle of the product to create safer, more reliable systems
  • Principles of Continual Learning: Daily work should involve lessons learned, outcomes that can be promoted to organizational practises that focus on continual improvement in conjunction with the above principles and result in gaining a competitive advantage in the market.

The result of this approach will break down any existing silos or prevent them from being created. You will more easily identify drift and be better equipped to resolve it. And with the resulting optimal flow you can unlock agility across departments, maintain product stability and ultimately ensure the quality your customers demand.

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How to become an AI-driven business https://www.impactechs.com/blog/how-to-become-an-ai-driven-business/ Tue, 17 Dec 2019 10:29:12 +0000 https://www.impactechs.com/?post_type=blog&p=13997 Making the most of AI requires putting it at the heart of operations and changing how your company works.

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A version of this article also appeared in Forbes on Nov. 18, 2019.

Making the most of AI requires putting it at the heart of operations and changing how your company works

Count yourself among the 96.4% of execs if you believe AI-driven technology is transforming how we do business. This belief is fuelled by estimates about AI’s expected economic impact. A PwC report calculates AI will add $15.7 Trillion to the global economy by 2030.

The relationship between Big Data and AI and our increasing ability to extract value from it using AI underpins these projections.

Data-driven decision making (DDDM) increases Business Intelligence (BI) and boosts competitiveness. However, this requires bringing Data and AI into the core of all aspects of decision making.

When correctly applied AI can transform both the client and employee experience through process automation. But viewing AI as plug-and-play technology with immediate ROI is wrong.

To become AI-driven requires changes to operations. The focus needs to shift away from narrow business problems towards bigger challenges like optimising the customer journey. Becoming AI-driven requires adapting company culture, structures and educating everyone about AI.

For example, AI used in our Automated Lead Scoring tool will enable a business to better identify the leads most likely to convert. But unless the entire sales process is modified to make best use of this information, the benefit is limited.

AI ‘To Do’ list

Firstly, interdisciplinary collaboration and creating cross-functional teams is essential. The biggest impact happens with a mix of skills where operational people work alongside analytics experts and data scientists.

Secondly, adopt DDDM. Augmenting judgement with an algorithm’s recommendations produces better decisions than either a machine or a human can make individually.

These steps involve the biggest cultural change. The traditional top-down decision-making approach is abandoned in favour of recommendations made by neural networks.

Your business isn’t AI-driven if employees need approval from above before acting on the recommendations made by Machine Learning driven tools.

Thirdly, be adaptable. Insisting a business tool has every desired feature before deployment reduces the long-term impact.

Creating AI applications is an iterative process. The test-and-learn approach generates early user feedback which allows correction of minor issues before they become costly problems. Development speeds up and reduces the distance to reaching a minimum viable product (MVP).

It is also essential to identify the unique barriers to change in your business. Some obstacles are common, such as workers’ fear of losing their job to new technology.

However, there are businesses with characteristics that lead to resistance. For example, Relationship Managers are paid to be in tune with their customers’ needs. Some will choose to ignore the tailored recommendations made by an AI-driven tool.

Also, everyone knows managers who measure status on the number of people they oversee. They are likely to object to the decentralised decision making or reduction in reports that AI could allow. Leaders must prepare and equip their workforce to make these changes. But equally important they too must adjust. Most failures are because of a lack of understanding about AI among senior executives.

Learn from other AI-driven companies

Much can be learned from other businesses that have implemented AI. Their success in aligning AI initiatives with their culture can help to guide your efforts.

One financial institution gamified their AI adoption program with a sales contest. Agents who recorded the most conversions using the AI-powered tool were showcased in the CEO’s monthly newsletter.

A telecoms provider implemented an AI-driven CRM at its call centre. They helped employees’ transition to the new software by adapting their approach.

Previously, employees reacted to customers who called to cancel their service. They changed their approach to proactively reach out to customers identified by the CRM to be at risk of defection.

Employees got training and on-the-job coaching on how to close sales. This unified approach reduced customer churn by 10%.

The marriage of AI and CRM solutions is a complimentary partnership. By channelling all business data (phone calls, live chat, emails, chatbots, etc.) to a CRM provides your AI with a central source to mine data from.

Modern CRMs can serve all customer-facing departments (Sales, Marketing, Customer Service etc.) making it ideal for implementing AI-driven practices across the business.

Educate everyone about AI

Successful AI adoption requires everyone being educated about it from the very top down. Firstly, senior execs need a high-level understanding of how AI works. This equips them to identify AI opportunities.

Marrying their industry experience with knowledge about AI will help them estimate the impact on workers’ roles. This also helps them identify potential barriers to adoption and better inform talent development requirements and guide the cultural changes needed.

Secondly, strategic decision makers, like marketers, require high-level training using real business scenarios that show how the tools improve decision making.

Thirdly, for front-line workers a general introduction to the tools with on-the-job training in how to use them.

Expect AI transformation to take months and anticipate a loss of momentum during implementation if results are not immediate.

To counter this, leaders must actively encourage the new ways of working. Early iterations rarely work out exactly as planned.

When that happens, leaders need to highlight what was learned to drive improvements in the next iteration.

Finally, reinforcement of why AI is being used will complete successful implementation. Comparing the results of decisions made with and without AI encourages greater use and acknowledges the employees who drive implementation.

Are you AI ready?

Adopting AI creates unique challenges. However, there are general considerations that are consistent for most businesses.

Audit the existing technology and talent pool within your business to decide if they meet the needs of your AI system. Look at existing data points and your data science expertise. Consider bringing in products and solutions that broaden your ecosystem.

After deciding where AI fits into your business, the gaps in existing tech and expertise that need to be filled will be clearer.

One option is to invest in a startup that has successfully developed their AI tech to augment existing resources. Alternatively, identify vendors to collaborate with or to co-invest in building market-ready applications.

The objective is to take actions that promote scale in AI as this brings its own benefits. This dictates how far the needle gets pushed on BI and the success of AI adoption.

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How to transform into an AI-driven business https://www.impactechs.com/blog/how-to-transform-into-an-ai-driven-business/ https://www.impactechs.com/blog/how-to-transform-into-an-ai-driven-business/#respond Wed, 28 Aug 2019 10:26:32 +0000 https://www.impactechs.com/?post_type=blog&p=13994 Taking the right steps when bringing artificial intelligence (AI) into your business will achieve a significant competitive advantage and all the benefits digital transformation offers.

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Taking the right steps when bringing artificial intelligence (AI) into your business will achieve a significant competitive advantage and all the benefits digital transformation offers

If your business hasn’t already taken the first steps to becoming AI-driven it needs to start today. AI’s effect on the global economy is going to be enormous. A Harvard Business Review report claims $13 trillion over the next decade – far more than JP Morgan’s 2017 estimate that GDP will increase by more than $1.1 trillion by 2027. Most recently, PwC calculate that AI will add $15.7 trillion to the worldwide economy by 2030.

The growing estimates demonstrate that AI will significantly influence future economic growth.

But how? Its the relationship between AI and data.

AI is highly efficient at processing and analysing data. It does it far more quickly than a human can and allows your business to benefit from Big Data analysis. This augments a human’s ability to make better decisions by leveraging previously untapped data sources.

AI increases the Business Intelligence and ensures future competitiveness. It can transform both the client and employee experience by simplifying and automating processes.

AI can also transform a wide range of revenue-generating as well as middle- and back-office operations.

An MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group study further underlines AI’s benefits. 84% of respondents expect to sustain or achieve a competitive advantage by using AI to increase Business Intelligence. 83% have made AI a business priority and 75% believe the technology will enable them to move into new businesses.

But viewing AI as a plug-and-play technology with immediate returns is a mistake. The opportunities AI offers requires changes to how most businesses work. There needs to be a shift away from focussing on distinct business problems, like improving customer segmentation, to bigger challenges like optimising the entire customer journey.

To get the most out of AI requires adapting the company’s culture as well as educating everyone.

artificial intelligence (AI) into your business

THE ‘MUST DO’ LIST FOR AI SUCCESS

Firstly, interdisciplinary collaboration is important and creating cross-functional teams is essential. A mix of skills where operational people work alongside analytics experts and data scientists ensures the biggest impact.

Secondly, move to data-driven decision making. Augmenting judgement with an algorithm’s recommendations produces better answers than a machine or human can make individually.

But taking these steps requires the biggest cultural change. AI-driven enterprises must abandon the traditional top-down approach to decision making and trust the recommendations made by the neural networks. If an employee still needs approval before acting on a recommendation made by tools driven by Machine Learning the impact is diluted.

Thirdly, be adaptable and experiment with your AI strategy. Insisting that a business tool has every desired feature before deployment reduces long-term impact.

AI applications rarely provide all the desired functionality in the first iteration. The test-and-learn approach generates early user feedback which allows correction of minor issues before they become costly problems. Development speeds up and reduces the distance to reaching a minimum viable product (MVP).

Identifying unique barriers to change is also essential.

Some obstacles, like workers’ fear of losing their job to new technology, are common.

However, there are companies with characteristics that lead to resistance, for example, those that use relationship managers. They may believe that they are already in tune to their customers’ needs and decide to ignore the tailored recommendations made by an AI-driven tool.

Also, there are managers at large companies that believe their status is based on the number of people they oversee. They may object to the decentralised decision making or reduction in reports that AI enables.

Leaders must prepare their workforce to make the change. But most importantly they too must prepare. Many failures are because of a lack of understanding about AI among senior executives.

THE ‘MUST DO’ LIST FOR AI SUCCESS

LEARN FROM OTHER AI-DRIVEN COMPANIES

The success of other businesses in implementing AI is highly informative.

Seeing how other industries align AI initiatives with their culture helps to create a road map to success.

At one financial institution with a strong emphasis on relationship banking senior leaders chose to highlight AI’s ability to enhance ties with customers. The bank created a booklet for relationship managers. It showed how combining their skills with AI’s recommendations improves customers’ experiences and increases revenue.

Their AI adoption program also included a sales contest. The agents with the most conversions using the AI-powered tool were showcased in the CEO’s monthly newsletter to employees.

Another example to draw from is in telecoms. A provider implemented a new AI-driven CRM in its call centre. In addition to investing in AI model development they also helped their employees’ transition to the new approach.

Previously, employees would react to customers calling to cancel their service. Now they proactively reach out to customers identified as at risk of defection. The CRM also uses Machine Learning to generate recommendations on new offers they are likely to accept.

The employees got training in skills on how to close sales. Coaches and managers listened in on their calls, gave individualised feedback, and updated the training materials and call scripts. Thanks to this unified approach the new CRM reduced churn by 10%.

In both examples employees were given an incentive to use the tools and in return each company saw an increase in Business Intelligence.

Automated processes that don’t need human involvement deliver returns more quickly than, for example, customer service. Achieving a view of customers that is detailed enough to do micro-segmentation requires setting up multiple sales and marketing initiatives. Expect targeted offers to deliver far sooner than the entire suit of capabilities to achieve their full potential.

LEARN FROM OTHER AI-DRIVEN COMPANIES

EDUCATE EVERYONE IN YOUR BUSINESS ABOUT AI

Leading by example is as important today as it was when first identified as a key to success. For successful AI adoption at your business everyone needs to be educated on it from the very top down.

Firstly, senior execs need a high-level understanding of how AI works to better identify AI opportunities. Marrying their industry experience with knowledge about AI helps them to estimate the impact on workers’ roles more easily. This will also help them to identify barriers to adoption and better inform talent development requirements and guide the cultural changes needed.

Secondly, strategic decision makers, like marketers, may require high-level training using real business scenarios that show how the tools improve decision making about advertising campaigns.

The educational effort in these two layers of management has a direct influence on the increase in the overall Business Intelligence in the company. However, it’s the pace at which that knowledge is applied that dictates the speed at which Business Intelligence increases.

Thirdly, for front-line workers a general introduction to the tools is enough with on-the-job training in how to use them.

AI transformations can take months to complete which may result in a loss of momentum during implementation especially if results are not immediate. To prevent this, leaders must actively encourage the new ways of working.

Early iterations rarely work out exactly as planned. When that happens, leaders need to highlight what was learned to drive improvements in the next iteration.

Finally, reinforcement of why AI is being used will complete successful implementation. Comparing the results of decisions made with and without AI encourages greater use of the tools and offering acknowledgement to employees who drive implementation success will encourage more of the workforce to adopt the new tools completely.

EDUCATE EVERYONE IN YOUR BUSINESS ABOUT AI

ARE YOU AI READY?

Adopting a new technology is different for every business. Each has its unique goals, strengths and weaknesses to consider before taking their transformation journey.

However, there are some general considerations that are consistent for most. Audit the existing technology and talent pool within your business to decide if it meets the needs of your AI system. Look at your existing data points and your data science expertise. Consider bringing in products and solutions that broaden your ecosystem.

After deciding where AI fits into your business it will be clearer if and where there are gaps in existing tech and expertise that need to be filled. One option is to invest in a startup that has successfully developed their AI tech to augment existing resources. Alternatively, identify vendors to collaborate with or to co-invest in building market-ready applications.

The objective is to take actions that promote scale in AI as this brings its own benefits. Moving towards interdisciplinary teams brings together varied skills and the user input needed to build the most effective tools.

Over time, working in cross-functional teams creates new perspectives and a shift away from trying to solve individual business problems and towards reimagining business and operating models. This change dictates how far the company pushes the needle on Business Intelligence.

Organisational hierarchies become flatter as decision-making becomes machine assisted which encourages further collaboration and even bigger thinking.

Leaders will play a highly critical part in the transformation process especially when overseeing how roles and workflows change, and the culture adapts to the new applications. However, every business that successfully implements AI throughout their business will find themselves at a significant competitive advantage whereby their employees and machines outperform their competition who rely on humans or machines working on their own.

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What are the benefits of AI in customer communications? https://www.impactechs.com/blog/what-are-the-benefits-of-ai-in-customer-communications/ https://www.impactechs.com/blog/what-are-the-benefits-of-ai-in-customer-communications/#respond Wed, 26 Jun 2019 10:19:24 +0000 https://www.impactechs.com/?post_type=blog&p=13990 Leverage communication data with artificial intelligence to deliver customer experience that’s comparable to Amazon.

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Leverage communication data with artificial intelligence to deliver customer experience that’s comparable to Amazon

If you need convincing about the benefits of AI in the workplace, you’re not alone. Many are unsure about it. However, you’ve probably already experienced it if you’ve been in contact with Amazon.

Did the Amazon agent answer your query successfully when you interacted?

If they did it’s because Amazon is. The speed and success of their customer interactions is a result of leveraging customer data using AI. Artificial intelligence streamlines communications with customers and improves the user experience.

Amazon’s customer base is global and speaks a multitude of languages and yet its success rate through communications is unmatched.

A brief interaction with their chatbot is enough for Amazon to understand the best way to respond to the query. AI enables Amazon to be proactive and anticipate a user’s concerns. As soon as it has enough information an agent can take over the conversation by phone and is a step ahead in the resolution process.

Compare that experience to when you were passed from agent to agent trying to solve a problem with another company. Most other businesses funnel their customers into using outdated channels because they are connected to legacy customer platforms.

Compared to AI-driven systems legacy platforms are inefficient, adding unwanted additional time to interactions and often generating frustration in customers.

The ease of communicating with Amazon makes it more likely to use them again, even when things go wrong. By contrast, frustrating interactions with a business leaves a customer feeling less inclined to use them again. And when an interaction to resolve a problem goes badly there’s more chance of customers looking elsewhere for that product.

In fact, Walker Consulting predicts that customer experience will be the key differentiator in business by next year, more so than the price or product itself.

MORE CUSTOMERS USING DIGITAL COMMUNICATION CHANNELS

For many customers, the phone is their main form of communication and is the primary support tool for businesses. This makes sourcing a cost-effective, high functioning telephony and UC solution business critical.

But an increasing number of customers use both phone and digital support. Live chat, ticketing/email, knowledge base, social media, and AI-powered chatbots are increasingly popular and preferred for certain use cases.

The challenge is in choosing which channel to implement and how to successfully incorporate in your business.

Understanding your customers and their communication preferences will guide the choice.

However, AI integration is critical if the new channel is to achieve full potential. This is because every time a business communicates with a customer it’s an opportunity to enhance that relationship. Personalisation is key. However, the only way to personalise communication at scale is by unifying customer data and using AI to present it in an actionable form.

Impact AI can drive relevant, convenient and personalised communications at every point in the customer journey. As a result, businesses acquire new customers cost-effectively. Retaining customers over the long haul becomes easier as does realising more upselling opportunities which increases lifetime value. Improved interactions also reduce churn.

One exceptional ability of AI-driven communication is to provide sentiment analysis about a conversation. It identifies customer mood to enable a business to provide highly personalised services. This information empowers agents and further analysis enriches subsequent conversations.

Sentiment analysis also helps businesses get valuable insights by analysing interactions between departments and within teams.

Speech analytics surface problem areas as well as reveal role-model agent behaviours. When combined with machine learning and natural language processing it can flag instances of non-compliance. This helps quality assurance managers zoom in on what needs attention and is effective for identifying agent training needs.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN LIVE CHAT KNOWLEDGE BASE AND TICKETING

When evaluating your communication infrastructure, it’s important to understand the benefits and role different channels offer a business.

Live chat allows customers to connect with agents on demand to get answers to queries instantly via a website. With live chat a business can engage customers in real-time and quickly provide solutions.

According to an Aberdeen Group report, companies that use live chat save 50% or more on support costs versus other methods. Agents can handle multiple chats simultaneously and there are better opportunities to use interaction logs for analysis and continuous improvement purposes.

Live chat also facilitates identification of sales opportunities. AI-driven insights into browsing habits and customer personas help to create personalised interactions along the customer journey and identify new selling opportunities.

Knowledge base is a self-help hub that is always available and avoids the need to escalate to an agent. This is usually in the form of an FAQ page or help guide and is built up by a business in response to recurring queries.

Having well explained answers on demand frees up agents’ time which can be better used in more complex and challenging scenarios.

While live chat and knowledge base can quickly solve customer problems, they also require an unquantified commitment of user time. However, there are some queries that don’t need an asap response which is when ticketing/email is preferable.

Ticketing and email communications can be mined to reveal actionable detail like pain points. This information can drive improvement in product development or new features.

Using Impact AI with Impact CRM to track these interactions reveals activity patterns to determine customer risk thresholds and identify at-risk clients. By closely monitoring these interactions Impact AI identifies the patterns where customers are likely to discontinue and help to reduce churn.

THE POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND AI-CHATBOTS

Social media’s importance as an engagement channel increases relative to customer age. Microsoft research in 2016 revealed that most millennials (born 1981-1996) believe social media is useful for customer service as opposed to only 27% of Baby Boomers (born 1946-64).

Its resolution effectiveness through the ability to ‘go public’ on unsatisfactory issues by leveraging public opinion.

While many organisations use social media as a ‘megaphone’ to broadcast marketing messages, they ignore the equally important ‘microphone’ approach for handling queries. An imbalanced approach where a business fails to respond to issues on a social media results in a decline in customer support by as much as 50%.

However, given its prevalence organisations simply cannot choose not to be available through at least one social media channel.

AI-powered chatbots capture customer data and context to deliver better communications and customer experiences. The use of conversational AI offers a responsiveness that mirrors having a normal conversation. It creates a relationship with the user by drawing context from data collected.

Chatbots also reduce website bounce rate – marketing’s equivalent metric to churn – by interacting with customers directly it engages the user for longer and increases the consideration rate.

The AI systems learn from data collected through sales transactions, customer service tickets, live chat, emails, and phone call recordings in addition to the chatbot interactions.

The intelligent chatbot solution is 24/7 gateway that is highly effective at addressing user frustrations when customers reach out. Human inconsistency has less of an impact and the scale of potential customer interactions is virtually limitless.

While each of these digital channels have their own compelling merits, integration is the only way to provide agents with a personalised view of every customer. The ability to communicate as a one-on-one relationship increases possibilities to sell and serve more effectively.

INTEGRATION GIVES MORE AI-DRIVEN INSIGHTS

The value in these various communications channels comes from the ability to analyse the data they produce about customers. However, customer data needs to become actionable to realise its true value. AI turns customer data into actionable insights.

However, if the goal of the company is to deliver Amazon-like customer experience it requires integrating all the company’s data, connecting every communication channel and business applications through a single platform like Impact CRM.

Customer facing employees need to access this data and insights whenever needed. Amazon identified that customers base their opinion of a company on their latest interaction. Therefore, employee consistency and their ability to answer questions and resolve issues is essential.

Integrating communications data with Impact CRM and other business app data gives a company a truly holistic picture and empowers agents when presented in a single screen.

Account insights regarding deposits and withdrawals as well as payment insights in relation to transactions can be analysed with email and marketing campaign insights. Every interaction can be analysed to predict where a problem might occur. This also includes customer paths recording as they navigate a website, actions logs, profile logs and KYC/AML logs.

The more customer data analysis, the more capable a business is to make good decisions. This ability arches across the entire business and through every layer of a company. An employee is armed with complete customer context and able to resolve an issue on the first call. Similarly, an executive planning business strategy using analysis of sales and communications data can make the best decisions.

A SOLUTION FOR EVERY BUSINESS

Legacy customer platforms that struggle to integrate multiple communication channels and business applications can’t compete with platforms like Impact CRM. They are never going to achieve Amazon-like customer responsiveness which is the benchmark modern businesses measure themselves by.

To achieve this the customer platform needs to offer easy integration with common communication channels, as well as APIs that allow integration with other business applications.

Impact CRM makes actionable business insights accessible to companies of every size, even those who don’t have the IT resources to create custom integrations.

This cloud-based solution unifies all business functions. When combined with Impact AI to leverage customer data a business can see all the relevant analytics through a single interface and access a complete customer history on demand.

These insights empower employees with the ability to address customer interactions successfully at the first point of contact and via whichever communication channel the customer prefers to use.

Impact AI can also identify trends and patterns in individual customers and offer personalised interactions as well as within the entire customer base to ultimately make optimal business decisions.

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Take control of the customer journey with AI https://www.impactechs.com/blog/take-control-of-the-customer-journey-with-ai/ https://www.impactechs.com/blog/take-control-of-the-customer-journey-with-ai/#respond Tue, 14 May 2019 10:16:22 +0000 https://www.impactechs.com/?post_type=blog&p=13987 Smart businesses personalise every step of the customer journey and can anticipate customer needs using ImpacTech’s AI-driven end-to-end suite of solutions.

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Smart businesses personalise every step of the customer journey and anticipate customer needs using ImpacTech’s AI-driven suite of solutions

The journey to becoming a customer is far from linear and highly variable. Purchase decisions result from interactions with numerous touch points and through several channels over days, weeks, months, or even years.

However, the purchase isn’t the end of the customer journey. It is as important to analyse post purchase to achieve long-term success.

Research shows 39% of consumers in banking, auto, insurance, telco, energy and retail consider switching supplier after two negative experiences. 82% of those people then go on social media to share these experiences with more than five people.

There are many reasons businesses fail. However, more and more businesses fall behind the competition because they struggle to deliver the experience customers expect.

Developing a winning customer experience (CX) starts with understanding your customers and their needs. These insights are in their customer journey data.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a highly effective method of analysing huge data sets while providing insights. The insights ImpacTech’s AI-driven platforms produce enable a business to optimise and personalise the entire customer journey. Making the right business decisions and delivering a superior CX becomes a daily habit.

In most cases businesses use AI to make an individual task easier or more efficient. However, when applied throughout an organisation AI not only optimises tasks it reveals what will improve business performance. ImpacTech’s AI-driven tools are applicable to all customer-facing operations to make critical decisions much better and faster.

LET THE AI-DRIVEN CUSTOMER JOURNEY BEGIN

The customer journey usually begins with a marketing campaign. The objective is to capture leads by creating awareness, interest and desire in the product which ultimately results in purchase.

Marketing effectiveness contributes significantly to Cost Per Lead (CPL) and Cost Per Acquisition (CPA).

Marketers use a mix of outbound marketing (AdWords, social media, email and print campaigns) and inbound marketing to capture leads.

The cost of these campaigns has a significant bearing on profitability. Therefore, finding the most cost-effective campaign is an ongoing challenge.

Our marketing tools generate highly qualified leads via the Google Ads platform by using branded mobile apps. Leads are attracted by the high functionality of the apps and a mixture of online and offline app events optimisations that exploits the Adwords bidding system.

Our solution collects application event data to identify lead patterns and their sales triggers. This is used to create laser-targeted campaigns that feed a client tunnel and generates branded leads with high purchase intent. This results in higher click to lead rates while significantly lowering CPL and CPA.

Monitoring the performance of marketing campaigns by integrating the solution with Impact CRM increases understanding of client behaviour and yields better campaigns. Automated performance tracking flags when campaigns delivers below expectations in real time and identifies the tweaks needed for more efficiency.

MORE DATA, BETTER RESULTS

Digital connectivity has enabled businesses to reach many more people. However, this has also raised customer expectations.

Meeting expectations requires having a platform that responds to every channel that customers use. Impact CRM is an integratable and scalable cloud-based platform that pulls together data in real time from across the business based on customer’s profiles.

It is a given that poor experiences risk revenue loss. However, customers will pay more for good CX which makes it more important than ever to provide better experiences during the customer journey.

Impact CRM uses the machine learning capabilities of Impact AI to provide a better CX along every step of the customer journey by producing real-time insights. For example, predictive analytics anticipates the likely nature of the customer enquiry and connects them with a support agent with the skills and experience to respond to the query.

Impact CRM captures the information when a form gets completed as well as interactions from landing pages, what is said to chatbots and during live chat, phone calls, SMS and emails.

The sentiment analysis module available with Impact CRM and Impact Telecom reports the mood of the customer during an interaction. Identifying what results in positive and negative interactions clearly defines the path that results in sales and higher customer satisfaction levels.

This analysis also helps identify which keywords work best in sales and marketing and how different customer segments react to variations in campaigns.

Valuable insights result from processing the rich source of data available in the variety of channels customers use. Time spent within a channel and which channel is used for what purpose are just two variables that reveal insights about preferences and customer intentions.

With these insights Impact CRM helps your business deliver the best personalised CX during the customer journey at scale.

SALES IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Impact AI accurately uncovers customer needs. It also reveals which lead is more likely to buy and who in your sales team is best-suited to make the sale.

ImpacTech’s intelligent chatbot is an excellent tool for uncovering customer’s needs.

The data collected through chatbot conversations offers greater value than website data due to the deeper understanding about user preferences revealed during a chatbot interaction.

Chatbots enhance CX by collecting actionable detail like revealing pain points and the most popular services.

Our intelligent chatbot uses conversational AI to engage prospects automatically. How the chatbot responds is the result of a hybrid approach that is fine-tuned through rule-based AI and machine learning.

Most sales teams spend 80% of their working week chasing deals. Our chatbot cuts through that so your team focuses on leads with high purchase intent and spend more time closing deals. It draws context from previous interactions and engages until they turn into a customer or opt out.

Our automated lead scoring tool helps to select which leads to approach by predicting with high accuracy* which lead is most likely to convert. *(86.7% prediction accuracy on leads most likely to convert based on an average of 300,000 leads processed per month).

Traditional rule-based lead scoring methods are unreliable because of the calculation complexity and variations due to weighting differences with different demographic combinations.

Our AI-driven tool is more accurate because it employs sophisticated non-linear models. The predictions are both interpretable and explainable and use a combination of ensemble learning, machine learning and continuous learning.

Automated lead segmentation determines which member of your team is best suited to convert a lead.

In addition to revealing customers’ needs, the best leads and who should convert them predictive analytics also uncovers cross-selling and upselling opportunities.

INCREASE LIFETIME CUSTOMER VALUE AND REDUCE CHURN

Walmart founder Sam Walton understood the need to minimise churn. He said: “There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.”

Human error and failure to meet customer expectations increase churn. Fragmented data from disconnected platforms and organisational data silos are an additional source for this failure and underline the importance of tracking the entire customer journey.

ImpacTech platforms use AI to enable every customer-facing team to respond to influences in the market. By tracking the customer journey, agents are aware of the experience – both positive and

negative – clients have in real time. It monitors customer activity patterns to determine customer risk thresholds and identifies at-risk clients, thus helping reduce churn.

Some of these failings can be minimised by using our intelligent chatbot. Your business can engage with customers 24/7/365 and respond consistently to client demands.

Conversational AI ensures they will always receive a response that is consistent with business goals and with what is known about the customer through Impact CRM.

Impact CRM also arms your agents with insights about sentiment, preferences and buying triggers. This information is critical to increasing lifetime customer value.

It is five times more expensive to acquire a new client than it is to sell to existing customers. Despite this, many businesses struggle to pair their products with an existing customer need. In part, this is because over one third fail to adequately track their customers’ journey.

It’s the difference between someone calling you about an exciting offer (standard CRM) and seeing something in your preferred social media channel that fits your needs based on analysis of your customer journey data.

CONSISTENCY AND PERSONALISATION ARE KEY

There is no guarantee that a one-time purchase results in a long-term customer or that occasional discount offers result in a repeat purchase. In fact, “rewarding” customers with discounts can sometimes confuse and end up backfiring.

The focus needs to be on a beginning-to-end experience, from the creation of those experiences to their delivery, management and their monetization.

Companies that can focus on their most profitable and loyal customers after the sale naturally set up future business opportunities and increase lifetime customer value. Keeping churn to below the rate a business acquires new customers effectively guarantees growth.

If your business only focuses on the last interaction, rather than the entire journey, it will reach conclusions which will do nothing to reduce the number of customers that leave.

Personalisation identifies who are your most profitable customers and ensures your business focuses on keeping them with offers that meet their expectations and reflect their value.

Use Impact CRM to define customer segments by profitability and predictive analytics to determine risk of churn and expected response to an offer to stay. Knowing who is worth keeping and predicting the outcome of retention efforts results in more efficient use of resources.

Getting existing customers to continue buying and adding new customers are goals all businesses share. Personalisation is key to achieving those goals and are now achievable at scale with ImpacTech’s technology. Even businesses that service millions of people can deliver a customer journey where every interaction is based on individual preferences.

The definition of good customer experience may differ from person to person. But understanding those differences and the ability to deliver a positive customer experience to every individual is the most important competitive advantage in business today.

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Impact CRM: The AI-driven CRM every business needs https://www.impactechs.com/blog/impact-crm/ https://www.impactechs.com/blog/impact-crm/#respond Tue, 02 Apr 2019 10:06:41 +0000 https://www.impactechs.com/?post_type=blog&p=13983 Discover why Impact CRM should be your next CRM and how it’s the most efficient and effective way to extract value from data and bring the benefits of AI to your business.

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Discover why Impact CRM should be your next CRM and how it is the most efficient and effective way to extract value from your data and bring the benefits of AI to your business

Most people in business agree that data has value. Despite this 87% organisations are classified as having low business intelligence (BI). An organisation’s BI rating reflects its ability to increase the value of data assets and take advantage of analytics technologies like artificial intelligence (AI).

Companies with low BI rely largely on spreadsheet-based analyses and personal data extracts. It’s also common for individual business units at these companies to pursue their own data and analytics initiatives as stand-alone projects.

If this sounds like your business, you are far from alone. However, your business’ ability to compete at the sharp end of industry depends on how well it uses its data to better engage with clients. A low BI can be improved by implementing an enterprise-wide data and analytics strategy. The most effective way to improve your analytics maturity is through an integrated analytics platform like Impact CRM that extends current infrastructure to include modern analytics technologies.

Impact CRM is designed to capture all your organisation’s data – customer data, account data, interaction-related data – and present the most relevant information at the most appropriate time so your agents can better engage with customers.

Most platforms fail to achieve this which is why so many businesses plan to replace their CRM.

There are always concerns when it comes to undertaking a change like a new CRM that affects the operations of a business. Many of those are based on the difficulties faced the last time the organisation decided to implement a CRM. For users there is a reluctance to change old habits. But Impact CRM is easy to use and has been designed to have an intuitive feel. It accelerates training time which helps to bring new users up to speed quickly.

WITHOUT AI IT’S JUST ANOTHER CRM

Data importing is one of the main concerns of management. The time it takes and the fear of losing critical data can be addressed by a well-planned onboarding programme.

Impact CRM also offers an unparalleled API architecture which takes all the hassle out of integration to your existing applications.

In addition to the advantage of its plug and play integrability Impact CRM is also a bespoke solution that you can add modules to suit the exact needs of your business. This enables you to scale the solution as you grow and avoids the one-size-fits-all approach of other solutions.

AI IT’S JUST ANOTHER CRM

User dissatisfaction is one of the biggest problems with CRMs. They can be hard to learn and make it difficult for users to do their job. A case in point is when tasks require a user to switch between systems. This disrupts flow and adds more time to a task and is often the result of poor integration with other systems.

Impediments like these make it nearly impossible to deliver the type of personalised and differentiated experiences required to achieve satisfied and loyal customers.

Impact CRM achieves a higher level of personalisation by connecting to every channel a customer uses and every department along the customer journey. However, the key to achieving long-lasting customer loyalty is the ability to understand the context of each interaction within the customer journey. Without AI this is impossible to achieve at scale and this is what makes Impact CRM such an effective tool.

The number of businesses implementing AI has grown 270% in the past four years and tripled in the past year, which equates to 37% of companies now deploying AI. By 2021 70% of organisations will integrate AI in the workplace to assist employees’ productivity which further underlines the increasing impact of this technology.

APPLYING AI AT SCALE REALISES ITS FULL POTENTIAL

Every digital business must start planning their AI strategy now, waiting simply isn’t an option anymore. AI has the potential to be organisationally transformational and is at the core of digital business and its impact is already being felt. According to Gartner research, global AI-derived business value will reach nearly $3.9 trillion by 2022.

“The real challenge with AI is how leaders need to rethink the organisational fabric of their business to make sure it’s applied at the right scale, beyond just solving a specific technical problem,” says David Lancefield, a partner at PwC’s Strategy&. “That’s how AI’s full benefits can be realised.”

Customer support, sales, marketing and product development connect seamlessly to Impact CRM and it supplies the insights that are critical to ensure they function at their highest capability by processing your organisation’s available data with AI.

APPLYING AI AT SCALE REALISES ITS FULL POTENTIAL

AI is the key that differentiates Impact CRM from other CRMs. While other CRMs can increase the efficiency in part of a business, Impact CRM’s influence extends throughout the organisation because it can connect to every function within a company and every channel used by its customers.

The best decisions in business are made by having access to the most relevant information at the most opportune time. Impact CRM enables your business to see the big picture and make better decisions.

Impact CRM delivers automation to make employees more productive. This increase in efficiency creates the time and space for your employees to build stronger customer relationships. Reducing inefficiency is just one way to increase profitability. Increasing revenue is the other side of that high value coin and is achieved through Impact CRM by helping a business increase retention and identifying the opportunities to cross-sell and up-sell.

ACHIEVE SCALABLE SUSTAINABLE GROWTH

Bringing our automated lead scoring and automated lead segmentation tools into your sales function identifies your hottest leads and ensures they go to the people best suited to convert them. One of our clients is reporting 86.7% prediction accuracy from the lead scoring tool after just three months following implementation. That accuracy figure will only increase as the accuracy of predictive analytics grows in relation to the volume of data that it processes.

automated lead scoring and automated lead segmentation

ImpacTech offers the most reliable and efficient products and solutions for your business using AI and Big Data to achieve scalable and sustainable growth. Early adopters of our AI-driven CRM will enjoy the benefits of lower costs, better customer experiences and a get a head-start in pursuing new business opportunities.

Our clients who are using our AI-driven solutions like Impact CRM are well prepared for the disruption that will arrive as AI reaches a higher level of adoption and they will be best placed to reap the opportunities that arise.

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AI-driven broker technology is the path to sustainable success https://www.impactechs.com/blog/ai-driven-broker-technology-is-the-path-to-sustainable-success/ https://www.impactechs.com/blog/ai-driven-broker-technology-is-the-path-to-sustainable-success/#respond Mon, 18 Feb 2019 10:01:43 +0000 https://www.impactechs.com/?post_type=blog&p=13980 Every broker, both new and established, needs to source a technology partner who can deliver data-driven behavioural insights to ensure they thrive in today’s market.

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Every broker, both new and established, needs to source a technology partner who can deliver data-driven behavioural insights to ensure they thrive in today’s market

Most well-established brokers and new brokerages should be weighing up whether the technology they use is able to drive long-term success. We live in a world where data-driven behavioural insights are an increasingly important factor in every business’ ability to compete, including online trading.

Customer service is one of the key areas that has been disrupted by behavioural insights. Artificial intelligence (AI) tools exist that intelligently process data to help deliver a more personal service to clients. These insights enable brokers differentiate themselves from the competition.

People expect to receive the same level of customer service they get from other popular online services. This is why many successful brokers are investing in AI tools and platforms to stay ahead of the competition.

To achieve this requires making best use of the data your brokerage produces. Every customer facing department including sales, support and marketing generates data. When this is collected centrally and processed it enables a business to deliver a personalized customer journey.

The best tools for data processing are driven by AI and work most effectively when hosted by a central platform which enables these analytics to be channeled to the appropriate business functions when needed.

ImpacTech use subsets of AI like sentiment analysis, natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) in tools to process every interaction and extract business-driving predictive analytics. The platforms upon which these tools perform best is Impact CRM and Impact Telecom.

There is an ever-increasing selection of CRM and telecom solutions for a broker to choose from. Many can do a fine job of the basic customer management requirements and some cater specifically for the online trading industry.

Our broker technology, like Impact CRM, gives a business data-driven behavioural insight. (Inset) Conversational AI drives our intelligent chatbot and delivers higher lead conversion

AI-DRIVEN BROKER TECHNOLOGY OFFERS SO MUCH MORE

When a customer contacts a business, they want a quick response from someone who can solve their problem. A good CRM makes this possible if the customer speaks to an agent who has access to the context and history of all their previous interactions.

But there is so much more that can be learned from this communication. It is possible to gauge the mood of the customer during the interaction using sentiment analysis. ML can then extract every positive interaction to determine the key elements that make up a successful customer interaction.

This is equally possible for interactions when customers reveal negative sentiment. They help a business understand what actions need to be avoided. Agents can use these insights to understand the parameters within which they need to work to achieve positive outcomes more often.

Standardising agent interaction has taken a step further forward using AI. Within the next five years 95% of all customer interactions will be through channels supported by AI with intelligent chatbots.

In addition to their 24/7 availability, AI-driven chatbots are highly effective at maintaining brand consistency. They reduce customer response and waiting time and lift a significant volume of work from employees. More importantly, a chatbot driven by conversational AI produces more efficient lead acquisition, drives higher lead conversion, increases retention and improves customer support.

Intelligent chatbots have advanced to the point where it is difficult for a person to determine they are interacting with a bot. The range of personalized responses they offer builds relationships with clients and some businesses have seen conversions double using chatbots in comparison to their traditional website.

The information collected during chatbot interactions also provides other valuable insights including which products and services are most likely to help an agent upsell to an existing customer.

EVERY BROKER BENEFITS FROM AUTOMATED LEAD SCORING

Sales can be further boosted through the automated lead scoring tool. An ML algorithm intelligently processes the data during interactions with a lead to determine its quality and assigns a value to the likelihood of conversion. By focusing on the best leads conversions increase and far less time goes on chasing leads that are unlikely to convert.

Further efficiency to the sales function is achievable through automatic segmentation. This tool automatically assigns leads to the members of the sales team who are most likely to convert them.

Leads are processed and segmented based on the marketing channel they came through and automated sorting ensures the right sales team can follow up at the most appropriate time.

Marketing is another area that can see an increase in effectiveness through AI. Marketing campaigns can be better targeted and personalized while re-targeting campaigns deliver more precise marketing and even higher conversions. Applying AI results in a higher return on advertising spend through increased lead generation, qualification and conversion.

The influence of AI on marketing is on the increase in all industries. A recent MIT global survey (via MarTech) of 600 executives revealed that 9 out of 10 companies already use AI to improve their customer journeys. 75% of companies report an increase in revenue after using AI-driven marketing. Users of Netflix will be familiar with its personalized recommendations function. The popular streaming service saves $1 billion every year by avoiding subscription cancellations because this AI-driven function keeps their customers engaged by suggesting relevant content.

Broker technology is the path to sustainable success
Impact PSP Gateway is the intelligent way for your business to receive payments

A GLOBAL MARKET REQUIRES A SMART PAYMENT PLATFORM

Most brokerages generate revenue from all over the globe. Channeling that revenue to your business is only possible with PSPs (payment service providers) that cater for every client.

One approach is to integrate payment gateways for each new territory as required. However, the ideal solution offers both the variety needed and ensures your business pays the lowest transaction fees. Impact PSP Gateway offers over 250 integrated payment gateways that adhere to a rule-based transaction flow. It is secure, highly available and offers real-time reporting.

The reporting system highlights issues and gives an overview of payment flows. It generates reports on currency, payments and gateway. Also, permissions settings manage who has access to sensitive information.

Broker technology is the path to sustainable success
A white label solution is the most cost-efficient way to acquiring a trading platform like MT4 and MT5

For new brokers the most efficient option for acquiring a trading platform is through a white label solution. MT4 and MT5 are highly popular trading platforms although Saxo Trader and cTrader are also viable alternatives. What these platforms have in common is that they are easy to use, easy to install and always available.

It’s also very important to offer the flexibility of desktop, mobile and web trading and that these platforms synchronize automatically. Traders also expect to have access to educational features and to set up trading bots to trade automatically.

New brokerages often start in unregulated markets. It’s a highly successful route for entering the industry.

However, compliance management is essential for brokers in regulated markets. This compliance monitoring tool is dedicated to forex brokers. It highlights potential compliance issues during calls. Many brokers have already adopted the module to improve compliance infringement detection. It also helps to highlight which members of their sales teams need more compliance training.

Broker technology is the path to sustainable success

Compliance monitoring tool highlights compliance issues

AS BIG DATA GROWS SO WILL THE EFFECT OF AI TECHNOLOGY

What makes AI technology a sound investment is that the insights improve with the amount of data available to process. This realization is spreading fast with more businesses embedding analytics and AI into operations and services.

The scope for applying AI in business is wide. It accelerates decision making, improves business processes, enhances user engagement and reduces costs. The potential to drive growth and profitability depends on the scope and number of business applications.

Where previous innovations have brought productivity gains and increased revenue growth, these have had linear effects that scale with investment.

AI can deliver non-linear improvements. Its ability to scale and generate insights through ML can deliver outcomes that far exceed the expectations of our clients.

For example, the prediction accuracy of the automated lead scoring tool was at 86.7% during the 3-month testing period.

As a result, the solution is now in use at all its call centers. The accuracy figure will only increase with access to more data to process. So too will the company’s revenue because the entire sales force will focus only on the best leads.

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How our intelligent chatbot enables your business to give a fully personalised customer experience every time https://www.impactechs.com/blog/how-our-intelligent-chatbot-enables-your-business-to-give-a-fully-personalised-customer-experience-every-time/ https://www.impactechs.com/blog/how-our-intelligent-chatbot-enables-your-business-to-give-a-fully-personalised-customer-experience-every-time/#respond Thu, 31 Jan 2019 09:58:45 +0000 https://www.impactechs.com/?post_type=blog&p=13978 Our intelligent chatbot produces more efficient lead acquisition, drives higher lead conversion, increases retention and improves customer support.

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Our intelligent chatbot produces more efficient lead acquisition, drives higher lead conversion, increases retention and improves customer support and is the only option for providing world class customer satisfaction at scale

Chatbots have become a common part of the customer experience, many businesses use them and  54% of users would always choose a chatbot over a human if it saved them time. However, people are aware they are dealing with a bot and most current solutions are little more than notifications and menus masquerading as conversations.

Every client interaction is a business opportunity and the increasing use of chatbots requires a solution that enhances user experience and drives business.

The use of conversational AI in our intelligent chatbot has elevated responsiveness to the point where users interact with chatbots as though they were having a normal conversation. It offers a personalised experience and maximises the business opportunities offered by the interaction. This technology is the reason why it is expected that conversational interfaces will replace more websites, mobile apps and contact centres this year than ever before.

Conversational AI takes the chatbot experience beyond a basic awareness of user history, profile and demographics which can be pulled from a customer information system. Our intelligent chatbot is equipped to build a relationship with the user, drawing context from all the data collected in previous interactions. It delivers an authentic experience which not only makes it difficult for the user to detect whether the are dealing with a human but also builds trust.

INTELLIGENT CHATBOTS WILL SAVE BUSINESSES $8 BILLION BY 2024

Most web chat agents are directed to base their responses from decision trees and scripts. As a result, much of the customer service messaging can be automated. One call to a contact centre costs a business between $6 to $15 and in some cases as much as $41 to answer basic questions. Conversational AI can reduce costs up to 90%. Other research estimates this technology will save business $8 Billion by 2024.

The benefits of our intelligent chatbot are not just limited to cost savings. Businesses have seen conversion rates double after using conversational AI in comparison to their traditional website.

The performance of our chatbot solution is on a constantly increasing curve. The improvement is relative to the volume of data it draws on. Machine Learning (ML) refines chatbot responses and improves them with adjustments made based on the results achieved.

Another benefit which sets our solution apart is that it is customisable to the unique demands of your industry. This makes it a far more effective than the generic solutions available because the AI systems learn from data collected by Impact CRM through sales transactions, customer service tickets, emails, and phone call recordings through Impact Telecom in addition to the chatbot interactions.

The hybrid approach we’ve taken to teaching our chatbot how to respond is fine-tuned through rule-based AI and ML. Additionally, our intelligent chatbot can be implemented simply and securely, with support for data redaction and encryption and in compliance with GDPR, HIPAA and PCI.

DISCOVER SO MUCH MORE ABOUT YOUR CLIENTS

Our intelligent chatbot forms a virtuous circle of continual improvement while driving better overall business performance. The data collected through conversations far exceed the benefits of data collected from websites due to the deeper revelations about user preferences expressed during an interaction. This accelerates chatbot performance while simultaneously providing more actionable data for the business to improve customer satisfaction. Everything from pain points and what services or features are the most popular are revealed more efficiently and in more detail through interactions with our intelligent chatbot.

This solution provides a 24/7 gateway to business that is far better at overcoming user frustrations that occur when reaching out to a company. Users prefer the option of a chatbot rather than facing the barrier of filling in time-consuming forms to have an issue addressed. Our chatbot gently teases out the required information piece by piece while keeping the user focussed on the immediate reason for the contact.

It also gives your business a way for its clients to avoid the frustration of being transferred along a call centre merry-go-round of departments until finding someone who has the knowledge to address the enquiry.

Human frailties will have far less of an impact on your business. Our chatbot doesn’t complain or overreact, it never forgets its training and needs no monitoring. Within a very short timeframe it will end up being the most efficient and reliable customer-facing ‘employee’ in your business.

The efficiency gains for lead management are also considerable. If a customer misinterprets how they’ve got to enter date of birth, phone number or other required data it interprets these friction points and automatically offers a solution or adjusts it for them.

SPEND MORE TIME CLOSING DEALS RATHER THAN CHASING THEM

Our chatbot can be set to automatically contact and engage prospects using natural language conversation until the prospect turns into a customer or opts out. As a result, your salesforce can spend more time closing deals rather than chasing them for 80% of their working week

In addition to more efficient lead acquisition our intelligent chatbot drives higher lead conversion, increases retention and improves customer support. It supports our highly effective automated lead scoring tool. It identifies the leads most likely to convert and reveals which interactions result in the highest conversions using built-in analytics. The prediction accuracy of the automated lead scoring tool is currently at 86.7% which will increase as more data is analysed by the ML algorithm.

One of the biggest challenges facing businesses today is keeping up with the ever-increasing standards in customer satisfaction. Most consumers expect a business to respond within five minutes after making contact online. Of greater concern is research that reveals that a business loses 25% of customers following just one negative experience.

People have become accustomed to higher standards because of frequent interactions with standard setting brands like Google, Apple and Amazon and anything that falls short of these levels of immediacy, personalisation and convenience leaves a negative impression.

Conversational AI will eventually become the standard by which all chatbot experiences are measured. A window of opportunity exists for businesses that opt to implement an intelligent chatbot now. The biggest benefit lies in the speed at which the technology ‘learns’ the intricacies of an industry and adapts to the demands of its customers. Adaptation happens very quickly and is soon followed by increased productivity, reduced costs, and more conversions from leads.

THE MOST EFFECTIVE PATH TO PERSONALISATION AT SCALE

Conversational AI makes full use of all the data collected throughout the customer journey to deliver an increasingly personalised response. It is the only viable path towards achieving personalisation at scale that today’s consumers expect. By passing the responsibility of front-line customer interaction to our intelligent chatbot you offer a more consistent, highly personalised and more effective response while your workforce is free to focus more of their time on creative or skilled challenges.

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